NASCAR’s favorite son and driving god Dale Earnhardt Jr. accidentally tapped a tree after a snowstorm that blasted parts of North Carolina. He said he tapped the tree because he was going a bit fast, but consider this, southerners: if Dale Jr. is struggling to keep it under control, maybe it’s not the best time to go…

The Olympics are fun. They’re a time when we can sit at a TV, pretending we like other humans as well as our country, all while cheering for athletes whose names we learned 10 minutes ago on Google. The Olympics will be even more fun when Dale Earnhardt Jr. runs around with a microphone on the broadcast.

Much like the rest of Dale Earnhardt Jr.’s NASCAR retirement season, there was hope this would be his weekend to go to victory lane. After all, his first win was at Texas Motor Speedway. It was a sign, wasn’t it?

Today’s Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series race at Talladega gave everybody what we all expected: the big one. A 17-car crash piled up behind the top few leaders on lap 172 of 188, red flagging the race for a massive cleanup.

In a retirement season where little has gone right for him, Dale Earnhardt Jr. will be starting from pole position for today’s Alabama 500 at Talladega Superspeedway. Despite having won at Talladega six times before, this is his first-ever pole position at the track.

NASCAR racer Dale Earnhardt Jr. got the best retirement present ever Friday afternoon from a track that he considers his “second home.” Talladega Superspeedway gave him the No. 2 Chevrolet Monte Carlo driven by his father for his rookie 1979 Cup Series season and his first championship in 1980.

There isn’t much that comes out of Alabama, other than college football, that makes you say “Hell yeah.” But hell yeah, the Alabama governor declared this Sunday as “Dale Earnhardt Jr. Day” across the entire state. Get your Dale Calls and your Mountain Dew beer hats ready, y’all, because it’s time to celebrate.

This morning President Trump said in a tweet he was proud of NASCAR for not putting up with “disrespecting our Country or our Flag,” in response to NASCAR owners’ threats yesterday to fire any of their employees who dared protest during the national anthem. Around 29 minutes later, Dale Earnhardt Jr., also on…

NASCAR driver Denny Hamlin won both the Monster Energy Cup Series and the Xfinity Series at Darlington Raceway this weekend only to have both wins “encumbered” after failing inspection—as in, made moot. Hamlin is still listed as the winner, but his win doesn’t count toward making the playoffs anymore and he receives…

Dale Earnhardt Jr., NASCAR’s most popular driver for the past 14 years in a row, announced a few months ago that he’d retire at the end of the season. Hearing that—that the end of an era was on its way, basically—was depressing enough in itself, but things just keep getting worse as the year goes on.

NASCAR’s most popular driver for 14 straight years and soon-to-be retiree Dale Earnhardt Jr. signed onto a multi-year deal to join NBC Sports’ NASCAR commentary team in 2018, the network announced today. Look, we all knew this was going to happen. The people need—no, demand!—more Earnhardt.

No matter how many weird rituals or blood sacrifices Junior Nation has done to prevent the retirement of NASCAR’s favorite son Dale Earnhardt Jr. at the end of the season, it’s happening. And as of Wednesday, his replacement is officially lined up: 24-year-old Alex Bowman will drive the No. 88 car in 2018.

The week began well for the No. 88, the beacon of all light and hope for NASCAR fans. Racing demi-god Dale Earnhardt Jr., who will usher in the end of life as we know it when he retires this year, qualified it first at Daytona. Then, he wrecked it. Then, he wrecked it again. Then, someone in England wrecked it, too.

Dale Earnhardt Jr. was fighting his way back up to the front during tonight’s Coke Zero 400 at Daytona International Speedway. He was already back on the lead lap after hitting the wall near the end of Stage 2, but then a big crash in Stage 3 put him back into the wall and ended his race tonight for good. Ouch.

Dale Earnhardt Jr. came into today’s Coke Zero 400—his final race at Daytona International Speedway—as a favorite to win, starting from pole position. Then he hit the wall at Turn 1, damaging the right side of his car extensively. Now he’s got to fight his way back up from two laps down.

Sometimes NASCAR’s race cars get into collisions that put them out of operation for good. But what becomes of these retired pieces of potential NASCAR history? JR Motorsports dropped a video this week showcasing how Dale Earnhardt Jr. situates some of those wrecked cars into his wooded “NASCAR graveyard.”

Despite only just announcing his retirement from NASCAR at the end of the current season, Dale Earnhardt Jr. is already planning to substitute racing’s adrenaline withdrawals with plans for a new home renovation program on DIY Network next year.

Dale Earnhardt Jr. is no stranger to getting hurt in the race car, but last year’s long concussion recovery opened his eyes to just how tenuous his health is as a racer. So, he announced today that he was retiring from the NASCAR Cup Series on his own terms while he still can make that announcement on his own.

No recent retirement announcement has stung racing fans quite as much as Dale Earnhardt Jr.’s did today. Sure, he’s 42 and we should all have expected this, but he simply feels like one of us: a straight-talking man of the people—the likes of which the hyper-polished world of NASCAR could use a lot more of.